7th February
It had just gone past midnight as I went walked into the dormitory. I tiptoed in the darkness and stubbed my toe on the edge of someone's bed. Pain seared through my body as I tried to refrain from crying out. There was movement from the other side of the room and a lamp switched on.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" Hermione spoke in a loud whisper, "I've been looking everywhere for you…"
I was suddenly brought right back into reality again.
Hermione spoke with an even louder whisper, she was really annoyed, "Are you going to explain yourself?"
"I was about to leave Hogwarts, for good." I said simply.
"You WHAT?" Hermione shouted.
Lavender, Parvati and Fay all woke up with a jolt.
"GRANGER!" Lavender shouted across the room, she really wasn't good first thing in the morning, never mind at midnight.
"What's wrong?" Fay spoke softly, half asleep.
Parvati turned over in bed, away from the light, "Kathryn's back. Well done. Trying to sleep, here."
"Sorry…" I sighed, "Night!" I pointed my wand at the lamp and turned it off.
"You're not getting away with it this easily, Kathryn." Hermione switched the lamp on again as I quickly scrambled into my jammies I had in my trunk, "Where were you? What happened?"
I was so aggravated by her tone, it's not as if she seemed to care before, "You have been horrible to me these past weeks, Hermione. The three of you. I couldn't take it anymore, so I packed up and left. You're bloody lucky I came back. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to sleep before anything else bad happens today. GOODNIGHT." I turned the lamp off again and put the curtains around my bed and found myself in tears. It took me all this time to get her attention to tell her how I felt and all I ended up doing was shouting at her. I felt dreadful in this overwhelming mix of emotions. I lay there for hours staring into the darkness of the room. I wondered if I had made the right decision coming back to Hogwarts.
As soon as I'd gotten over to sleep I was forced out of bed again.
"Kathryn, you look awful." Parvati said as I was looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red and puffy, I was so pale and my hair was a greasy mess, sitting in every way.
"Thanks very much." I felt terrible, too. My head was pounding and I had no idea how I was going to make it through the day. I went to take a cold shower to waken myself up a bit. I tried to cover up the appalling state that my face was in and it took all the energy I had to get dressed. I considered taking a sick day as I didn't know if I could face the wrath of McGonagall as well as Hermione, Ron and Harry. I expect they'll all want an explanation. Last night had gone so well until I stepped back into the castle again. Thankfully I wasn't feeling down any more, but that had been replaced with an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion.
I dragged myself down to the Great Hall for breakfast. I poured myself three cups of coffee and downed them as fast as I could.
"Woah!" George sat down beside me, "You're going to give yourself the jitters!"
"Trust me, anything is better than exhaustion and what is lurking over me today." I took a bite of toast.
George smirked, "Could you not sleep last night, too?"
"Shut up." I shook my head trying my best not to imagine what he was thinking, "Hermione confronted me when I got in and I shouted at her… I feel like I haven't slept."
"Drink this," George handed me his cup of orange juice, "trust me!"
I raised an eyebrow at him, if he made me sick, I could get the day off. "If you gave me one of those fainting fancies or something, that would be wonderful."
"No, honestly, this is better."
I took the cup and swallowed the lot. I immediately felt 1000 times better. It's as though I had completely regenerated. I instantly had a boost of energy and was feeling ready to deal with whatever this day had to throw at me.
"Essence of enhancement! Another of our experiments! This one we've tried and tested!"
"George Weasley, you are my hero." I rested my head on his shoulder for a second before we were interrupted.
"Excuse me." Professor McGonagall coughed, "These are for you two." She handed us both letters. Mine read:
'Dear Miss Pink,
After your disgraceful behaviour last night, you and Mr G. Weasley have received a week's worth of detentions. Reasons for this include: leaving school property, entering a teacher's office without permission, being out of bed after curfew and not even bothering to explain your actions. You will both meet me in my office at 1530 for your punishments.
Professor M. McGonagall.'
George and I looked at each other and laughed. "See you later, Georgie. Professor Hagrid is calling."
"Yer late, Miss Pink. You ought to be turning up to yer classes on time."
"Sorry, I was talking to Professor McGonagall."
"I expect you were after las' nights gallivantin'."
I tried not to smile. It was totally worth it. I had a fantastic time, not that I could say such a thing, not even to Hagrid. "It won't happen again, Professor." I nodded to completely reassure him.
"Any ways, what I was tryin ter say before getting disrupted is that Salamanders can survive up to six hours outside a fire if regularly fed peppers. So tha' is what we're gonna do today. Divide into groups o' four or five."
At this point, a sullen faced Ron, an apologetic Hermione and a concerned looking Harry approached me.
"I'm sorry, Kathryn…" Ron was the first to speak, "We were all looking for you last night. Someone said they saw you leaving the Common Room with your trunk. We were all so worried…"
Harry spoke next, "We all thought you weren't going to come back."
"I wasn't going to." I muttered to myself.
"We know." Hermione said.
"George gave me a good talking to this morning before you came down for breakfast…" Ron began, "I had no idea I had hurt you so much, he said that you were really upset…"
Hagrid handed us a Salamander and a bag full of red-hot chilli peppers, "Yer challenge is to keep the Salamander alive and ter build a satisfying fire first. No magic."
"No magic?" Ron looked disgusted, "But honestly, Kathryn, I am genuinely really sorry…"
I nodded. Harry gave me a sheepish 'sorry', he seemed ashamed. Hermione and I set aside our differences for the time being, I'm sure we were all going to discuss things further later on.
Between the four of us, Ron and Harry went off to find sticks, Hermione attempted to light a fire and I sat with a Salamander on my knee, keeping him warm and feeding him peppers every 30 seconds. Hermione handed me a knife (goodness knows why she had one in her bag) and told me to shave some of the twigs in hope that she could ignite them. After 10 minutes of frantically rubbing two sticks together I could see she was struggling, so the boys and I joined in, hoping that something, anything would happen. We were in a huddle, on our knees with a cluster of sticks and a Salamander to keep alive.
"SPARKS!" Hermione shouted. We hadn't a clue where they had originated from but we kept rubbing and rubbing until one of the sparks caught alight on the kindle. Hermione gently spread the fire over a wider surface area before slowly adding twigs. Within a minute we had a life-sustaining fire. "WE DID IT!" she clapped her hands excitedly.
"HAGRID!" Harry shouted.
"Well done!" Hagrid congratulated us as he inspected.
The four of us certainly worked well together.
After classes I headed straight from DADA to Professor McGonagall's office where I met George. I took great care to knock on her door and listened for permission to enter.
"Enter." The stern voice of Professor McGonagall sounded. We were in for a long afternoon, I could just tell that she was in a bad mood. "Oh, Miss Pink, Mr Weasley. Today you will be cleaning my classroom. This includes removing chewing gum from the underside of my desks, removing graffiti and rearranging books and equipment. I want this place spick and span. All cleaning products can be found in the back cupboard. I will be back soon. Do not dare mess about or your detentions will increase in length and severity." Professor McGonagall left the room and I immediately got to work.
"You're seriously not actually doing work, are you?"
I looked at him blankly, "Well, yes? No matter how lovely it is spending all this time with you, I have better things to be doing than cleaning classrooms for the rest of my life. I just want to get it over and done with."
"So I'm going to have to make the most of having you to myself for the rest of the week?"
I blushed slightly, taking the cleaning box out of the cupboard, "Yes, yes you will."
George turned on McGonagall's radio in the corner of the room. I grabbed a cloth and started dusting the hundreds of books whilst George put them into the bookcase. Then we gathered and categorised all the equipment dispersed around the room. The place was looking so much better within that short period. It always helped that I liked ordering and classifying things. The job was made easier as we played games, asking each other questions where you had to be completely honest. The more imaginative, the better. But we weren't allowed to ask the same questions back.
George started off, "Tell me something that no one knows about you."
"Oh, wow. Good question… Nobody knows that someday I would like to write a book."
"Oh, interesting!" George seemed intrigued by my response.
I thought of a question to ask him, "What is your proudest accomplishment?"
"Making in life so far without dying." George laughed, "Where's your favourite place to go?"
"Am I allowed to say my bed?" I asked.
"Definitely not!" we both laughed.
"Well, my second favourite place to go is in the forest behind my old home in Northern Ireland where I used to go when I was sad or annoyed or whatever, just to go and chill for a while read a book or calm myself down. I had my own tree stump where I always used to sit. It was so quiet and peaceful and no one knew where to find me." I said very honestly and thought of a question to ask George. Then Dumbledore's question to me at Christmas popped into mind, "Where do you see yourself in ten years' time?"
"I would be twenty-five, wow!" George thought for a while, "I would like to… own a company where Fred and I can sell our inventions together. I suppose I would also like to be thinking about getting married and having kids, have my own house, a few pets and a place in the garden to play Quidditch."
"Sounds good!" I said, before realising that it almost sounded like an insinuation, "I hope all your dreams come true!"
Then George asked me a question, "What is your favourite body part?"
"What sort of question is that?" I enquired, slightly shocked, whilst cleaning the statement 'Michael loves Tina' off one of the desks.
"One that I'm curious in finding out?"
I thought about it for a minute, there wasn't very much about myself that I did like, I suppose at times I liked that I was tall, but that wasn't a body part… I often liked my hair when it was sitting nicely, but something that never changed was, "The colour of my eyes? What's your favourite thing to eat for dinner?"
"Curry. What's your favourite colour?"
"Blue. What country would you like most to visit?"
"Probably America," George answered and I agreed with him, "How many kids would you like?"
"GEORGE. These questions are very personal." I scolded.
He looked up from under one of the desks, cleaning the graffiti, "Well, how am I supposed to know if you don't tell me?"
"How many I'm blessed with." I answered simply. "Would you prefer a large family or a small family of your own?"
"Fair enough, changing the wording so you can get me to answer." He smiled cunningly, "It depends on how many kids you want. I think I'd like a medium-sized family."
"You are such a tease, George." I rolled my eyes at him. He is never like this with me when anyone else is around. I looked at the clock at the front of the room, it was almost dinner time, "What's your question?"
"Describe me in three words."
"You- Fine." I thought about his well-known character, "Mischievous." Then I thought about the person I have gotten to know, "trustworthy and…" I thought about it using the word 'thoughtful' but, "vivacious" came into mind.
"So that you think I'm a very naughty boy. You want to tell me all your secrets and you would very much like to marry me right now because I'm such a pleasure to be around."
"Darn. The jig is up. I am madly, hopelessly and incredibly in love." I said sarcastically in a dreamy tone.
"With me?" his eyes lit up, he pointed at his chest.
"WITH YOU." I chucked the dirty cleaning cloth at him and ducked behind the table as he threw it back. We had finished all the tables, straightened out all the books, tidied all the equipment and George performed a spell to clean the floors. The place was gleaming.
"Question?" he asked, straightening up the contents of McGonagall's desk.
I decided to be a little bit daring, "What is your favourite thing about me?"
"One thing? That's not possible. You'll have to let me list them…"
I couldn't believe my ears. I rearranged the cupboard at the back of the room as I supposed, "You may as well."
"Okay…" He sounded determined, "I like your smile. I love your laugh. I love your honesty and how incredibly pure you are. I love the way I feel like I can just talk to you and ask you anything. I'm grateful for the way you still talk to me, even after burning your arm, not writing to you and being a complete pain in the arse. I enjoy watching you work and the way that you bite your lip when you're nervous (I caught myself on) and you stick your tongue out slightly when you're thinking. You are incredibly creative and curvy and courageous and you've managed to put up with me and my family and you're willing to stay at ours this summer. And I love-"
He stopped talking.
"Well, do carry on, Mr Weasley. I would LOVE to hear what you have to say." Professor McGonagall's voice sounded from the doorway.
"I LOVE how clean this place is." George looked slightly red in the face as I closed the cupboard doors.
"Well, I must admit this is a great attempt. You may leave for dinner. I expect to see you same time, same place tomorrow." McGonagall looked the two of us up and down as we left her classroom and we headed to the Great Hall and out of sight. I had learnt so much about George this afternoon but at the same time I had no idea what way to take him. Does he like me as a friend? Does he like me more than that? Or was it all one big joke to him? That is something I think I'll never have the confidence to ask…
11th February
Today was the last of our detentions together. On Tuesday, George and I had to write an explanation as to what happened on Sunday afternoon/night in complete silence. That didn't stop him sending me cheeky notes across the table, though as McGonagall sat reading a copy of 'Witch Weekly'.
On Wednesday, we had to dust all the suits of armour around the school. George joked about, climbing inside some and scaring the heebie-jeebies out of me! We had a good laugh getting to know each other through a game of 'have you ever'. George's answer to "have you ever been in love?" was, "what's to say I'm not right now?"
I'm reading far too much into this, right?
Yesterday we sat and marked first year class tests and graded them, with the help of McGonagall, so we weren't allowed to talk much. There was no note passing, only communication through facial expressions. At one point I forced myself to cough to stop myself laughing at George as he was told off by McGonagall for writing sarcastic commentary. I felt truly awful as I marked a boy named Terence Bagman's paper and he got 4/30 and McGonagall made me to go the Ravenclaw common room to give him a detention.
But firstly, I used the enchanted knocker and had to answer the riddle, 'Feed me and I live, but give me a drink and I die, what am I?' It took me a while, but I got it. The answer was fire. I entered the quiet common room, it was as though I was surrounded by a cluster of Hermiones. It was rather terrifying having them all look up at me, eyes like daggers for making too much noise. Thankfully Penelope Clearwater, Head Girl and girlfriend to Percy approached me.
"Are you lost? How did you get past the door? Why are you here?" her head bobbed from side to side with each question.
"No, I'm not lost. I answered the riddle, I'm not stupid. And Professor McGonagall sent me. Can you help me find Terence Bagman?"
"Of course." Penelope looked impressed. It mustn't be every day that someone from another house gets into their common room.
Penelope whispered to a girl with long blonde wavy hair, "Luna, would you mind?" and the girl set down her magazine and skipped up the stairs to the right of the room behind a statue of Rowena Ravenclaw.
As I waited in the silence I had the opportunity to have a nosey around. The circular shape of the room was similar to Gryffindor as it was the adjacent tower. Royal blue curtains hung at the windows where ours were red. Outside I could see the Forbidden Forest, the Quidditch pitch and the Herbology gardens. There were at least twenty tables with chairs at one side of the room with a massive bookcase lining the wall. There was a fire on the opposite wall, surrounded by comfy looking sofas in blue and bronze colours. The walls were covered in tapestries and the saying 'wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure'. It was actually a nice place to be, once you got over the initial intimidation.
Poor little Terence looked terrified as he approached me. His face was pale and his hands were shaking.
"Professor McGonagall asked me to give you this." I handed him the letter. He opened it and started to cry, "Please don't be upset…" I said as I lead him over to one of the sofas to sit down, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm currently on detention, have been all week."
"W-What did you d-do?" His voice shook.
I giggled to myself and whispered, "I tried to escape, but I came back and got rewarded with a week of detentions!"
Terence grinned through his tears, "Will I see you tomorrow then?"
"Of course you will, don't worry, I'll keep an eye out for you!" I said, standing up, "I'll see you around!"
In today's detention, George, Terence, Draco and I were all together in McGonagall's classroom.
"My Father will hear about this. This is discriminatory, Professor. I have a note from Madam Pomfery." Draco played the usual cards.
McGonagall being her usual sassy self said, "You are here now, Mr Malfoy. Perhaps you will learn how to hand in your homework on time in future. A sore toe doesn't cut it for me, I'm afraid."
"Kathryn? What are you doing here?" Draco looked shocked as I sat at one of the polished desks.
"I ran naked through the Great Hall on Sunday night." I spoke in the most serious of voices, pretending that it was a totally natural thing to do.
Draco's chin dropped, "And I missed it?" He sounded disappointed.
"I should have joined you." George joked.
I looked between George and Draco, "I wish both of you were there." Then I winked.
Terence looked horrified, I assured him it was a joke by shaking my head at him. Professor McGonagall did not look one bit amused at my humour. I thought she would get my sarcasm, as she is the most sarcastic person I know, but perhaps I went a little far for her liking. I think the looks on George and Draco's faces were totally priceless, though.
"Today, the four of you will be picking up litter around the school grounds. Here are bags. I want them filled by dinner time. There will be no need to go towards the Forbidden Forest or Professor Hagrid's hut, you will clear the immediate school grounds. Do not under any circumstances come into contact with a Dementor. You will be watched by members of staff. Stay together. Do not mess about. Be sensible. You may go."
The four of us headed straight out the front door and into the fresh air. The weather was pleasant, which in our terms meant not raining. We picked up rubbish here and there, the boys getting excited over things that were slimy, rotting or smelly. George also practiced blowing things up. He was showing me new spells I hadn't used such as 'accio' which summoned objects, such as rubbish from bushes, and 'bombarda' which made things explode. Draco wouldn't leave me alone, seeing all the attention George was giving me. Luckily, after almost three years of sitting beside him in potions, I have grown to tolerate him, and sometimes even enjoying his presence, but not today.
"Leave me alone." I threatened him as he tugged on the back of my robes, waving disgusting objects in my face.
He stomped his feet on the ground like a child.
"Honestly, can't you behave?" I asked, "Look at Terence being a good little boy. Perhaps I would give you more attention if you weren't so hopelessly annoying all the time. Have you not thought about that, Draco? And you haven't put much into your bag yet. McGonagall is a very serious woman, you need to stay on her good side, unless you want to be in more detentions from now on? I certainly will not be joining you." I walked over to a pile of rubbish a good bit away from everyone and used the spell 'wingardium levisoa' to put it inside the bag.
Terence joined me a couple of minutes later and I asked, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, but those two seem to be fighting over there."
"Oh for goodness sake." I asked Terence to hold my now, full bag as I ran at full speed towards the two boys knocking seven bells out of each other. "GET. OFF. NOW." I shouted as I approached them but they ignored me, "DO NOT MAKE ME TEAR THE TWO OF YOU APART, YOU'RE ACTING LIKE CHILDREN!" I shouted again, no response. The two of them were fighting like there was no tomorrow. There was nothing I could do but personally go in there and break them up. I grabbed onto the back of Draco's shirt and yanked him as hard as I could. I stood on someone's free hand and put my other leg in the gap that I had created between the two of them. I really didn't think of the fact I was wearing a skirt. Thankfully I had tights on. I took my eye off Draco for a while in the hope that George would see me, telling him to stop. The very next second I received a strong elbow to my nose and another to my eye which threw me back in the air and I landed on my back. I screamed. I opened my eye, my vision was a little fuzzy and my nose only bled for a shot period as George performed a spell. The two boys were on either side of me, very concerned offering to carry me to the Hospital wing. "GET OFF ME." I got to my feet.
"Kathryn-" George and Draco said in unison.
I was fuming, "NO. I don't want to hear it. I told you to stop fighting. You-" I pointed at Draco, "you were told to stop acting like a kid. And you-" I looked at George, "I thought you were better than this. Because whatever the two of you were fighting about ended up getting me hurt. The two of you best leave me alone and continue the rest of this detention in silence." I threatened and walked back to the corner where I was initially working with Terence.
"A-Are you okay?" he asked, a little more afraid than the last time he talked to me.
"Me? Oh yeah!" I took a deep breath and the two of us got chatting, picking up rubbish. Apparently little Terence was a half-blood and both his parents were in Ravenclaw too. He said that his little sister should be joining Hogwarts next year, too. He was such a delightful little boy, saying that the reason he did so badly in his test was because he wasn't feeling well and was too scared of McGonagall to say anything, the poor chap. As we cleared the rest of the grass I sang muggle songs to myself including the theme tune to 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' mum's favourite TV programme. It was a catchy rap; I couldn't help it.
I had filled three and a half bags by the time McGonagall came to relieve us for dinner. She seemed happy enough by the work we had done and I had officially been dismissed from detention, hopefully for the last time. I had both Draco and George ran after me as I disposed of the rubbish bags.
"Kathryn, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you…" George began.
Draco interrupted, "It was all his fault really. He punched me first."
"You probably deserved it, Draco." I didn't look at him.
"Are you even going to listen to my side of the story?"
"You can tell me after breakfast tomorrow, if you like? As for now, I'm going to get dinner and since you won't sit at the Gryffindor table, you're just going to have to miss out on some Kathryn attention tonight. See you around Draco. I hope your toe gets better." I dismissed him, he really did do my head in, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't let anyone else speak to him like that. I often wanted what his agenda was with me. That was a thought process for another time. Now I had to deal with George, "What happened?"
"He was very rude."
"What did he say, George?"
"He said that he'd very much like to reach up your skirt and so you can have beautiful children together."
"He clearly doesn't know how babies are made." I snorted.
George raised an eyebrow, "You're not disgusted?" the two of us sat side-by-side.
"He talks to me like that all the time. I'm quite used to it. We even discussed what we are going to call our children. Apparently one needs to be named after his father, Lucius and one after Snape because he was the one who brought us together. He can be tame, too, making sure that I'm okay and tells me that if I ever needed somewhere to stay during the holidays I could always share his bed. He said that his mother would plan the entire marriage if I wanted, he also said if I don't want to marry him, he's up for that too, and a threesome-"
"I really don't need that image in my mind, thanks." George looked repulsed. He proceeded to eat a plate of lasagne.
"You have to remember; I've sat through hours of therapy. I've learnt how to deal with crap people say. I've been threatened and sometimes Draco's voice breaks it all up for me, droning on in my ear. I know about his entire family and how half of it are in prison such as his Aunt and Uncle Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Sure, his mum gave me a necklace for saving his life. If I ever need a favour from them, I'm sorted. Honestly, Georgie just ignore him." I said matter-of-factly, serving myself some chicken casserole and rice.
George's face turned concerned again, "He said that he would do whatever it took to make you part of his family, he said that he would fight me. He threw the first punch. You've got to-"
"I quite believe you."
"I don't want you getting hurt. You've been through too much already. I just want you to know that I care." George was sincere and looked lovingly into my eyes.
"I care about you too." I admitted.
"How's your nose and eye?" he gently touched my eye and examined it.
I felt no pain, "I'm the very best. I'm pretty sure I caused more damage to you two!"
George smirked, "You and I can get down and dirty in the grass any time."
"You see what I mean about inappropriate comments?" I joked.
He turned back to his dinner, "Sorry."
I thought of many things I could say to break the silence but Ron, Harry and Hermione sat opposite us. Ron had decided to hate Hermione again because he came to the conclusion that Crookshanks is her cat and I had nothing to do it. I constantly heard them arguing, but never in plain sight. Harry had naturally taken Ron's side which I think was the better option for him, Ron's wrath, as I found out, is just as bad as his threats. I think they kept up appearances though, for my benefit. They didn't really talk much, but it was alright if there was the slightest chance of peace within the group. Hermione was the first to talk, "Don't you think you two have spent enough time together this week?"
"George can't get enough of me; I'm considering getting a detention every week so that we can be together." I swivelled my head to look at George and smirked. I could see him gulp. Then he started to choke. I rubbed his back as he coughed and encouraged him to take a drink, "And it looks like he can't survive without me." I shook my head sarcastically, "Honestly Georgie, what am I going to do with you?" I took a sip of my pumpkin juice.
"That thing I said earlier." He raised his eyebrows.
Then it was my turn to choke. "We're destined to be together." I said after I stopped coughing and spluttering.
"I don't think we're ever going to understand their inside jokes." Harry sighed.
"Or chemistry." Hermione added.
Ron scrunched up his nose, "Or weirdness."